Karahan Tepe and The Serpent Motif

Quetzalcoatl was the ‘vaulted serpent’ of Aztec culture. The ‘Rainbow Serpent’ was the primary creator God inside indigenous Australian culture. Were these myths merely cultural interpretations of the same Shining One from the Sky?

Twelve Miles East of Eden

Archaeologists have been working at a new dig site since 1997, a kind of ‘sister site’ to Göbekli Tepe, called Karahan Tepe. The site is located near Sanliurfa in Anatolia, Turkey, and is roughly 35 kilometers east of the Göbekli Tepe site along with its fertile garden plain of Paddam Aram (‘Harran Plain’ in the image to the right). The Karahan Tepe site is now considered to possibly be even older than its sister site, both at around 11,500 years old.1

In a previous article, we cited the legacy which this region has played inside the mythology of the Arameans (forerunners of the Aramaic-speaking peoples); and in particular, the development of Antiochus I’s Hierothesion at Nemrut Dağ. It is our construct that key elements of the mythology related in the documents which eventually became the Bible’s rendition of Genesis, played out inside this very region. A region also known as the Fertile Crescent or Cradle of Civilization.

The purpose of this article is simply to highlight an observation I have made regarding the Serpent Motif which was carved by the builders of Karahan Tepe at the top of chamber 3, or what is known as the unfinished ‘hypogeum pit’. I contend that the idea should be seriously considered, that this motif represents not a literal serpent, but rather the Sagittarius central plane, or what is called the Great Rift of the Milky Way galaxy, as viewed in the night sky from Earth. The comparison is drawn in Exhibit A below.

Exhibit A – The Shining One – carved into the limestone above the third main chamber (the hypogeum pit) at the Karahan Tepe archaeological site in Şanlıurfa Province, Turkey is the motif of a viper serpent. This compares structurally to a portion of the dark-banded ‘Great Rift’ of the Milky Way galaxy, visible in the night sky. The head of the serpent begins in the constellation Norma, and then ranges back through the tail of Scorpio, and into the bow of Sagittarius (the serpent’s tail). Should not be confused with the Serpens Cauda constellation in the nearby sky.

For a placement perspective view of Exhibit A from Starry Night Pro, dated to January 9500 BCE in the nighttime southeastern sky of south Anatolia, click on the image below.

Exhibit B – The Nâchâsh or Sheshanāgá – the cosmic shining snake’s sky placement along the Milky Way’s Great Rift. January 9500 BCE in the nighttime southeastern sky of south Anatolia (Karahan Tepe).

Nachash, the Hebrew word for serpent (which is derived from common Sanskrit origin) actually possesses three coincident meanings:2 3 4 5 6

As a noun, it means serpent (Sanskrit nāgá: ‘cobra’ or ‘snake’).
As a verb, it means to divine; the nachash means the diviner (Sanskrit Nāga: a semi-divine race of human-serpent beings).
As an adjective (from the nâchâsh root, ‘to shine’), it means shining; the nachash means the shining one (Sanskrit: Sheshanāgá: the cosmic shining snake).

All three forms of definition bear relevant context inside the analogy outlaid in this article. In an ancient form of the revered mythology of mankind, which was much later co-opted into the religious privations of various highly-biased sects and cults, one rendition of a familiar tale reads thusly:

Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”

And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ”

Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.

~ Genesis 3: 1-6, New King James Bible
The Serpent’s Face – the AB Chamber at Karahan Tepe.

Were the hapless human creatures, suffering anosognosia and involuntary servitude inside this mythological play, being instructed/deceived by a serpent indeed? Or perhaps, someone whom mankind merely associated with The Serpent Motif?

The Church-expunged Gnostic texts, Hypostasis of the Archons and On the Origin of the World (both recovered from extermination in 1945 at Nag Hammadi) for instance, reverse these deified roles in Genesis, identifying the plural ‘LORD God’ (Elohim) as the demigod Samael (also Yaldabaoth, Ariael, or I Enoch ShemYaza and finally contemporary, Ha-Satan) and his Archons (the fallen Enochian ‘Watcher Angels’). They who take out their wrath upon and gleefully imbibe in the enslavement and suffering of mankind.

These ancient writings identify The Serpent in contrast, as being an onlooking ‘Instructor’ not of Earthly origin – a dispeller of belief (see What Constitutes Belief?). Did the culture which built Karahan Tepe honor through this monument complex, a mythology or even recent history which was impacted by such a character? Belief, in this mythological context, would stand as a set of invisible prison bars, crafted by the Archons – institutions and religions mandating the obfuscation and extermination of every thought or line of research which might serve to bring their diabolical work to the light of accountability.

Bolt’s Axiom – a belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses; it is an idea that possesses the mind.

Quetzal bird

Shall we forget in particular, Quetzalcoatl, the ‘serpent (coatl) of extraordinary (quetzal bird) feathering’ of Aztec culture, or the Aboriginal ‘Rainbow Serpent’, the primary creator God inside indigenous Australian culture? How can we skip over the Nāga, a semi-divine race of human-serpent beings from Vedic mythology or Buddhist nāga, a human being with a snake or dragon extending over his head? Do we dismiss the Seraphim of Isaiah 6, the ‘fiery ones’ of angelic human form with wings? The root seraph, in the original meaning, ‘fiery serpents’.

Mythology assigns the role of this serpent motif, as an agent in the dispelling of our state of ‘distraction, ignorance, and stupor’ – the ‘amnesia of amnesia’ of modern mankind. Perhaps even assigning the serpent’s associated venom as an agent of the recursive and higher thinking which defines neolithic man as distinct from his progenitors. Dispelling this state of anosognosia is one of the missions of The Ethical Skeptic. To wit:

The Ethical Skeptic’s Razor (The Antiwisdom of Crowds)

Among competing alternatives, all other things being equal, prefer the one for which discussion or research is embargoed.

Power, Politics, Narrative, and Profit demand a level of transparency which obviates that same burden upon mere dissent.

What is enforced by Narrative, can also be dismissed as Narrative.

As a result of this brainwashing through Narrative, where else might have we as mankind observed this same Serpent Motif and not realized it? This is a question I will long ponder.

Serpent Mound Ohioraised head, four humps, and a curled tail – Does the ridge-fitted fanciful caricature at Serpent Mound in Adams County, Ohio also depict the revered Celestial Serpent? Were the builders of the Serpent Mound monument long lost descendants of those who constructed the chambers at Karahan Tepe?

This segment of the sky containing the Serpent Motif also happens to be housed inside the 19th mansion of Mūla in the Hindi Jyotisha lunar nakshatras. Mūla is the centerpiece of the many mansions of Jyotisha cosmology, and stands for the concept of ‘the root (of everything)’, ‘innermost core’, or ‘that from which the tree sprang’. This mansion pertains to investigation into things unseen or unknown.7 8 In Vedic Astrology the Ascendant/Lagna in Mūla indicates a person who has a passionate desire to get to the truth and is good at investigation and research.9

I find it interesting that the Mayan God Bolon Yokte’ K’uh, fabled to have returned to Earth around the end of the Mayan Calendar 13-Bak’tun (which was the basis of the December 2012 ‘End of the World’ madness), had ventured to the center of the galaxy to request permission to recapture his stolen owl-feather plumed hat.10 11 In this cosmology, the center of the galaxy is depicted as both a tree of origin and a serpent.12

Were such serpent motifs merely cultural interpretations of the same Shining One from the Sky, the Nachash? Only time and persistence bear even a remote chance of revealing that answer.

The Ethical Skeptic, “Karahan Tepe and The Serpent Motif”; The Ethical Skeptic, WordPress, 2 Feb 2023; Web, https://theethicalskeptic.com/?p=70739